Breakdown of La psicóloga escucha a cada paciente sin juzgar y aprecia su esfuerzo.
Questions & Answers about La psicóloga escucha a cada paciente sin juzgar y aprecia su esfuerzo.
That a is the personal a, which Spanish uses before a direct object that is a specific person (or a beloved animal).
- escucha a cada paciente = “she listens to each patient”
- Without the a (escucha cada paciente) it sounds wrong or, at best, very foreign.
Whenever the verb directly affects a specific person or people, you almost always need this a:
- Veo a María. – I see María.
- Ayuda a sus pacientes. – She helps her patients.
With cada (“each/every”), Spanish does not use an article directly in front of the noun:
- cada paciente – each patient
- cada día – every day
- cada persona – each person
You can’t say:
- cada el paciente ❌
- cada un paciente ❌
If you want an article, you normally restructure:
- cada uno de los pacientes – each one of the patients
But then cada is modifying uno, not pacientes directly.
- oír = to hear (the sound reaches your ears, whether you pay attention or not)
- escuchar = to listen (you are paying attention on purpose)
So a psychologist escucha her patients (she actively listens), not just oye them.
Examples:
- No te oigo. – I can’t hear you.
- Te escucho. – I’m listening (to you).
The -a ending tells you the psychologist is female.
- psicólogo – male psychologist (or generic masculine)
- psicóloga – female psychologist
The article also matches:
- el psicólogo – the (male) psychologist
- la psicóloga – the (female) psychologist
About the accent: psicóloga is stressed on psí‑CÓ‑lo‑ga (third‑to‑last syllable), so it must carry a written accent (all such “esdrújula” words do).
Escucha and aprecia are third person singular, simple present:
- ella escucha – she listens
- ella aprecia – she appreciates
In Spanish, the simple present is used both for general truths/habits and for things happening “now” in many contexts. Here it describes what she typically does as a professional.
You’d use está escuchando / está apreciando mainly to highlight that something is happening right now, this moment:
- Ahora mismo, la psicóloga está escuchando al paciente.
Right now, the psychologist is listening to the patient.
Sin juzgar literally means “without judging.”
The structure is:
- sin + infinitive = without doing something
Examples: - sin comer – without eating
- sin hablar – without speaking
- sin juzgar – without judging
Juzgar appears in the infinitive because Spanish uses the infinitive, not a gerund (-ing form), after sin in this kind of phrase. So you don’t say sin juzgando; you must say sin juzgar.
You can say:
- La psicóloga escucha a cada paciente sin juzgarlos.
This means literally “without judging them,” with -los referring to los pacientes.
Both versions are natural:
- sin juzgar – “without judging (them)” – leaves the object implicit.
- sin juzgarlos – makes the object explicit with the pronoun.
In many contexts, Spanish omits the pronoun when it’s obvious who is being judged, so the original sin juzgar is perfectly natural and slightly more general.
Apreciar can mean several related things:
- to value / esteem something or someone
- to be grateful for / appreciate something someone does
- to notice / perceive (in some contexts)
Here, aprecia su esfuerzo most naturally means:
- She values / appreciates their effort.
- She recognizes and is grateful for the effort they make.
So both “values their effort” and “appreciates their effort” are good translations.
Su in Spanish is context‑dependent; it can mean his, her, its, your (formal), or their.
In aprecia su esfuerzo, the subject is la psicóloga, so su most naturally refers to someone else, not to herself. Given a cada paciente just before, the automatic reading is:
- aprecia su esfuerzo = she appreciates each patient’s effort.
If you wanted to remove any possible ambiguity, you could say:
- aprecia el esfuerzo de cada paciente – she appreciates each patient’s effort.
- aprecia su propio esfuerzo – she appreciates her own effort.
Yes, that word order is grammatically correct:
- La psicóloga escucha a cada paciente sin juzgar.
- La psicóloga escucha sin juzgar a cada paciente.
Both mean the same thing. The difference is very slight in emphasis:
- Original order focuses a bit more on each patient: what she does with each one.
- escucha sin juzgar a cada paciente can sound like a little more emphasis on the way she listens (without judging), then who she does that with.
In everyday speech, both orders are fine and natural.
Spanish normally drops subject pronouns when the subject is clear from the verb ending or context. This is called a “pro‑drop” language.
Here:
- La psicóloga escucha… y aprecia…
Once you’ve said la psicóloga, that same subject naturally continues for aprecia, so there is no need to repeat ella:
- Saying La psicóloga escucha… y ella aprecia… is grammatically correct but sounds more emphatic or slightly redundant in this neutral sentence.
This sentence is perfectly natural and neutral in Latin American Spanish. There’s nothing in:
- La psicóloga escucha a cada paciente sin juzgar y aprecia su esfuerzo.
that marks it as specifically European or Latin American. Vocabulary, grammar, and style are standard and would be understood and accepted across the Spanish‑speaking world.